green thumb
by Element's Sole Protector
Summary: In the aftermath of cruel tragedy, Noctis sends Luna a gift.


This has some minor edits/additions on tumblr and AO3. Happy lunoct week!

* * *

In the end, everything happens because Gladio gets nicked really good across the face during training and has to drag them both to the mansion to stop the bleeding. They never would have been watching the news otherwise.

Noctis is hanging in the study with Iris, half-listening to her amusing TV-show recounting and half-imagining how Gladio will look with another scar, when out of nowhere the tune for Breaking News blares and the younger Amicitia gasps, "Oh, how _awful_."

When he turns, the live broadcast on screen shows the fields of Tenebrae aflame.

At first he thinks it's old footage, _has to be_. It's such a perfect recreation of the fire and blood and fear of _that day_, the day Niflheim stole their peace and he and his father had to leave Luna and Ravus behind. But there are no bodies, and there were no news crews there as the flames roared; they only showed their faces after Tenebrae's queen was long cold, and only then to spin Niflheim's lies about the day.

Then Noct shakes off his paralysis and _listens_. The anchor is contemporary, a well-known Accordan. As she speaks of the fire's unknown origin and how quickly it has spread and how desperately a few hunters are working to quell it, she's not gesturing to the places people live, or even to the palace. The camera is covering the sylleblossom fields the country is famous for, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Eos.

And Luna's sole oasis in the desert of enemy occupation.

* * *

"Make your statement, _Princess_," Caligo Ulldor hisses. He shoves her forward toward the palace's front doors and the heartsick, clamoring crowd beyond. "Why keep the people in suspense concerning their precious Oracle's fate?"

"You—!"

Ravus starts forward from the corner, teeth bared, ready to doom himself and his sister both in the name of chivalry—but with a single hand, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret halts his words and his advance. She takes her time regaining her balance, and stares the Brigadier General down with eyes as steely as his own.

"Worry not. I will speak."

"Then what are you waiting for?!" he snarls. He is in fine form today; flushed to his neck, with clenched fists, a voice hoarse from shouting, and capillaries already waiting to burst in his eyes. Lunafreya knows from experience that his fists are the greater concern.

She steps forward, deftly avoiding the handful of MTs waiting to pull the doors open for her. Ravus immediately moves to her side, and offers her his arm as he always does. This time, more cognizant than ever of Caligo's eyes on their backs, she does not take it.

In this, she must be strong alone.

"Lunafreya," her brother insists, but she steps through the palace doors and does not heed him.

The crowd gasps and cries anew the second they lay eyes on her, and though it is muted, Luna feels a joy similar to theirs—her people, the Tenebraens, those precious few who still revere and cherish the Nox Fleuret line. They have probably been camped out here all day, praying that the fire did not topple the palace or kill the blood of the Oracle.

_If only it had._

Luna steps up to the makeshift wooden podium her captors have prepared for her, and stares straight into the blinking red eye that represents the rest of the world.

"My dear friends," she begins, and the people hush themselves to drink in her words. "People of my homeland. I thank you for your concern for our safety. Each of your prayers was a shawl around my shoulders, one that kept me safe from the flames just beyond. None of the staff of Fenestala nor our Niflheimr guests were harmed in any way."

Cheers ring through the field. Cameras are adjusted hastily; news anchors paraphrase her words for audiences across Eos. Several reporters snap photos of Luna, of Ravus standing stiffly at her side, of the even-more-stilted MTs and of Caligo shadowing them all just behind the podium.

For them, their Oracle has been found safe though bruised and sound though angry. Nothing has been lost. They are so _happy_ that it hurts.

Luna… cannot be happy.

"Unfortunately…"

She hesitates. Takes a deep breath. Unseen, Ravus squeezes her elbow. When Luna looks up at him for the first time, she can see her pain reflected in his own blue eyes.

"Unfortunately… we have received news that the fire has burned the last remaining sylleblossom fields of Tenebrae to ashes."

The news is more of a blow to the people than she expected. Perhaps eight years of occupation has not yet completely crushed their spirits, their hopes, as it nearly has hers. Then again—the sylleblossoms were always special, a magic mortals could tend to but never replicate. Even in Niflheim's chains, the flowers glowed day and night, as though representing the pride of their people and the princess who grew most of them from seedlings herself. Now, that magic is gone.

Luna closes her eyes for a moment. It doesn't work; a tear still falls, but she doesn't hear her audience's murmurs of grief and sympathy. She is remembering: springtime as a small child, a crown princess instead of an Oracle. Her late mother, Sylva, teaching her how to plant sylleblossom seeds just so, and to be conservative with watering and spacing so they would one day stretch beyond the fields of Fenestala Manor.

"_Someday this will be your task, Lunafreya. I hope it is one you take joy in._"

When the queen was cut down in the very fields she tended, and her blood looked ready to taint the ground forevermore, it was Luna who took seeds salvaged from her brother's room and from scattered Tenebraen families and relocated the affected blooms, while bestowing even more care on the ones which could not be moved. Luna had removed the burned blooms and replaced them with new life, and prayed she would never have to watch her precious field burn again.

It was a prayer the gods did not heed.

Caligo's shadow draws closer, so Luna lifts her head higher and opens her eyes, but does not raise one finger to wipe her face.

"Though no lives have been lost, the people of Tenebrae have lost an important piece of their heritage today. The sylleblossoms have long been a symbol of peace and hope and… and we will have to move forward without them. I ask for privacy and your understanding during this time as we work to heal the land from… this terrible accident, and move forward."

That's all she is willing to say. She turns, and Ravus sweeps a hand to cut the uptick in voices that usually precedes thoughtless questions. Rather than wait for him, or for any of her other guards, she puts one pale foot in front of the other until she is back inside her cage, with her mechanical caretakers shutting the doors once more.

Luna exhales heavily, and starts toward the stairs—

—and she doesn't even get to take another breath before her arm is wrenched back and she's nearly pulled into Caligo's bulky armor. Years of practice allow her to bite down on the sound of pain which would surely draw the braver reporters and bystanders past Ravus and through the doors to aid her in her plight to their own peril.

His hot breath still stinks of Niff whiskey as he snarls in her ear: "Best watch your step, Princess. As always, you perform well for a crowd—but next time you cross me, you will not live to speak of it. After all—there's not much of you to burn. You're so thin you'd go up like a _twig_."

Luna is thrown to the floor as he stalks off, chortling. Her eyes are pinned to the lighter he's twirling mockingly in his other hand, unashamed as he is of his crime, and of all he has taken from her. Hatred and despair churn in her gut, along with the helplessness that is her second skin.

But she doesn't get up for a long, long time.

* * *

Noctis is ready to stow away on a train to Tenebrae that night to get Luna the hell out of there.

"You _cannot_ show up in Niflheim territory, Noct, no matter how much the Lady Lunafreya would doubtless appreciate your company," Ignis says for probably the tenth time, or maybe the eleventh. Noct is not counting, he is seething.

His father, his council, _and _his retainers are all saying the same thing. And not that it's bullshit—it's valid advice, well-thought out as anything from both the king _and_ Ignis is bound to be—but, no, yeah, it's _bullshit_. Luna's flowers are one of her few joys, just one of a limited number of hobbies keeping her sane. And she lost every single bloom to a fire _in the middle of rainy season_ in Tenebrae, which has "Niflheim cover-up" written all over it. The bastards did this to hurt her. Noctis should _be there_ for her.

"There was no reason for the Niffs to do that to her! She's never once tried to escape since they killed her mother, Dad would know if she had. She—she goes on TV and says every single stupid lie they want her to say, she has for years, and then they go and do this? She could be in danger!"

"No doubt she's in danger," Gladio huffs. He's still holding a gauze pad to his cheek with one hand, and holding his little sister's hand with the other. Iris was especially shaken by the Oracle's tears, and has been mostly quiet all day. "Doesn't mean we can do much about it. We _especially_ can't have you marching into enemy territory to dry the Oracle's tears right this second. You'll have every tank in the nation pointed at you in no time."

"Let them point the tanks then! I'm ready!" Noctis rages. His back flares up along with his temper, putting an unfortunate damper on his point; but still, he presses on. "How I'm feeling right now, I could wave my hand and take 'em all out—"

Ignis shuts that train of thought down immediately. "Anger does not erase the fact that you are sixteen years old and your combat training is nowhere _near_ complete!"

"And even if it was, you can't just spit in the face of diplomacy," Gladio adds. "There's protocol for state visits. Red tape for visiting occupied nations. How would His Majesty feel if something happened to you because you ran off half-cocked to rescue two political prisoners?"

They're making sense, as they've been trained to do, and it just makes Noctis angrier. Angrier… and more despondent. He pulls helplessly at his own bangs, pacing Gladio's room like a rabid dog.

"I… I can't just watch her cry, and do nothing. I _can't_. I couldn't live with myself if…"

He trails off. He sounds… nuts, ordering his retainers who are barely older than _him_ to let him sneak off to another country to comfort his childhood friend. It's just…

_It's Luna_. _Luna needs me, I know she does_.

Ignis and Gladio both look down and away from him. Noct bites his lip hard, clenching his fists in the bargain. He wishes there was a Niff in front of him he could punch—someone he could take this helpless anger out on, someone he could protect Luna from.

Instead there's just Prompto, who's sat on the floor next to Iris and watched the news replay Luna's speech over and over while contributing nothing to the ongoing argument. He's still so new to rubbing shoulders with royalty that Noct doesn't even blame him for his unusual quiet.

"I just… wish there was something I could _do_."

Maybe something in Noct's face gets to him, or maybe his words do. Prompto finally breaks his silence as he gestures to the screen.

"Maybe you can't go see her, but you could still talk to her—right? You could call Umbra—send her something!"

The thought clears Noctis' head a little—but then he's stuck all over again. It's all well and good if he sends a gift that's as _good_ as him being there, and yet. What could he give her that would be supportive and understanding? What could he find that would give her hope, when she looked to have lost every last scrap of it on the news?

"A letter might be enough," Iris tentatively suggests. "Flowers are good for grief, but considering what she lost…"

_Right. And then there's that._

Noctis remembers how sweet the sylleblossoms of Tenebrae smelled to him, laid up as he was in bed for many days after the Marilith's attack and their arrival. They had almost seemed to coax him to get well soon, so he could go outside and play among them. For him, the flowers were not only an extension of Luna; they were also a living symbol of the hope he clung to throughout his recovery, part of what got him back on his feet.

All gone, now.

"I can't believe they're really all gone." Prompto sighs. "The people of Tenebrae donated their seeds to replant the sylleblossom fields after the queen died, right? And now there's nothing left to give."

Noctis nods, but—wait. That doesn't seem right.

"I agree with Iris," Ignis says, at length. "A message relaying your heartfelt sympathies will go a long way. And it is safer than showing up and imperiling the current ceasefire."

"Hey, Noct—"

Noct is half-listening to everyone, but the urgency in Prompto's voice gets his attention. When he looks up quickly, his newest friend is already looking back at him, with something like confused excitement dawning on his face.

"Didn't you say once that Lady Lunafreya sent you a packet of sylleblossom seeds—?"

The words are a bolt of lightning to his brain.

* * *

_It was over a year ago, but Noctis remembers the day that particular message came to him like it was yesterday._

_Prompto had just started talking to him a few weeks prior. They were walking home from the arcade when a furry torpedo smashed into their legs._

_"Umbra!"_

_"Umb-whaaa?" Prompto shrieked._

_Noct was too busy unhooking the notebook from around the dog's neck to explain. He'd cryptically told his newest friend he had a "pen pal", and no other details beyond that. Considering how dramatically Umbra had announced his presence this time, that might be changing soon._

**_Dear Noctis,_**

**_Thank you for showing me your mother's beautiful garden. What a wonder to see such healthy plants and flowers in such a modern palace! I know well how painful it must have been to be in a space she treasured without her beside you, so I appreciate the photos more than I can say in words._**

**_In thanks, I've enclosed something just as precious to me as your mother's garden doubtless was to her. These sylleblossom seeds are from flowers that grew after the fire on the last day we played together. The flower is notoriously delicate, but hardy once planted—and, of course, beautiful to look at._**

**_I hope that in giving you something important to me, a small part of me will be with you always._**

**_Luna_**

* * *

"Prompto," Noctis breathes. "You are a genius."

"Wish my teachers would say that," his friend quips. Then he does a double-take. "Wait, why am I a genius?"

But the prince is already up and out the door, ignoring Gladio and Ignis' shouts of _where are you going_ and _wait up at least_. He heads toward the Citadel like he's been fired from a cannon.

A year ago, Noctis planted all but a few seeds in Queen Aulea's old garden. It had taken some time, but the sylleblossoms did grow—to see them now, cheerfully poking out here and there among the other rougher plants, no one would ever guess they weren't native.

Noct is resolute: the ten seeds that are left will be returned to their sender tonight. If he has to, he'll pull the garden's flowers from the dirt and send _them_ too, by the fastest mail route possible.

_Good thing the fastest route is probably asleep on my bed right now_.

* * *

_Knock, knock_.

"Tell them to leave," Luna instructs Ravus from her desk. It's a muffled instruction, because her head has been pillowed in her arms all evening, and she has no intention of moving it. "I am not accepting visitors."

The whole of the land still smells like ash.

From her bed, Ravus stands, redressing in their enemy's full military regalia. "Turning your people away is not a luxury you can long afford."

"We both know that whoever is at the door is not one of our people."

Ravus' silence is reproach and answer enough. Moonlight slides away from him as he strides across the room and opens her door in her stead.

"Ah, the Lady Lunafreya lives!"

A presence far darker than Caligo Ulldor's sweeps past Ravus and into her quarters; her brother sputters protests, but to no avail. Luna doesn't need to turn around to identify the Imperial Chancellor, which is fortunate: she needs these precious few seconds to fix her face into something unassuming, pleasant and non-threatening.

"Good evening, Chancellor. Is there some way I can help you…?"

"Come now, no need for that." With a delicate twirl, Ardyn Izunia has procured the only other chair in the room and turned it to face her. When he slides into it, the brightness of his burnt gold eyes draws her gaze; once she's looked up, she cannot look away. "I beg you, please call me Ardyn. Formality is so _dull_. And unnecessary, when I have brought you a gift!"

"A gift?" she echoes.

"Yes, found and retrieved by one of your preciously loyal dogs. Ah ah, worry not—" He chuckles and waves his hand as she darts up in alarm. "He was waylaid by a maid of House Fleuret who seems determined to fatten him up with sweetmeats. Lucky thing! I merely took the liberty of completing his delivery for him."

Luna's heart hammers—she knows Messengers don't need to eat, and she knows that Ardyn (himself more than he seems) probably is aware of this. However, the Chancellor is such a laid-back entity when it comes to her dogs and her notebook that sometimes she forgets he ever happened upon them at all, years back.

Umbra probably really is begging for food he doesn't need in the kitchen right now.

_He wouldn't hurt Umbra_, she tells herself. _He hasn't yet. Nor Pryna, nor Ravus or even myself. He may keep his silence for a reason beyond my knowledge—but he _has_ kept it._

"I… would be honored to accept."

Ardyn glows. With Ravus looking on, he pulls Luna's notebook from the folds of his cloak, with black ribbon noticeably tying a tiny package to it. He offers both items grandly; she takes them both eagerly. It takes no longer than a moment to stand and move out of reach of both men, unwrapping the notebook and turning to the newest page as though they are both absent.

_Luna,_

_I saw you on the news. There's nothing more I can say, except I'm so sorry about the sylleblossoms. I know how important they were to you._

_I hope my gift will help you feel at least a little better. I hadn't yet planted some of the sylleblossom seeds you sent me last year. Now, I think their place is at home, with you._

_Please stay safe._

_Noctis_

Luna chokes on her next breath.

Just as promised, the package contains ten delicately-wrapped sylleblossom seeds.

"Lunafreya?!" Ravus says behind her, with no small amount of concern.

She cannot speak. Her cheeks are flushed red, her eyes squeezed shut; tears leak from the corners against her will. She can barely swallow down a sob. It isn't the first time Noctis has sent her some token, a piece of Insomnia or an item he is personally attached to—but it is the first time that the tender thoughtfulness behind one of his gifts has moved her to tears.

"Do you need a moment, my dear?" Ardyn inquires solicitously. Quicker than her ears can track, he is already sashaying back toward the entrance to her chambers. "Please, take your time. I know it has been a difficult few days for you!"

He must take Ravus with him, because once the door shuts, the room is unbelievably quiet. Luna cannot tell because she's busy: her arms are tight around the notebook, and her lips are pressed firmly to the bag of seeds.

Salvation from afar. A second chance.

"Oh, Noctis…" she murmurs.

_Thank you_.


End file.
